Porto, Portugal, August 2, 2014 – Brazil’s Eduarda Santos Lisboa is right on track for another medal at the FIVB U19 World Championships in Porto. With Andressa Cavalcanti Ramalho at her side she defeated Russia’s Mastikova/Novikova 2-1 (18-21, 21-11, 17-15) in the second round on Friday and later on overpowered Swiss team Rohrer/Gerson 2-0 (21-11, 21-9) to claim a spot in the semifinals.
“Yes, we are one step closer to our goal”, said 16-year old Eduarda. “The next step is the semifinal and if god is willing we will be able to go to the finals. We are betting everything on that.”
Eduarda made her debut last year winning silver at the U23 with Thais Rodrigues en gold in Porto with Taina Silva Bigi. This year did not bring a medal yet. Andressa finished 5th last year in Porto with Paula Hoffmann.
Though one of the medal favourites the Brazilian girls don’t take anything for granted. “All games have their difficulty and especially in this stage of the competition where it’s an elimination game we have to stay even more focused”, said Eduarda.
“But this game (against Switzerland) was great and let’s go for another one, we did our best and we will continue to do so, and we are very happy.”
First final four for Czech Republic In the semifinal Brazil plays Czech team Kristyna Adamcikova and Katerina Valkova. In only their first FIVB age group event the Czech girls reached the semifinals by defeating Paraguay’s Michelle/Erika (21-14, 21-12) and Austria’s Gesslbauer/Radl (21-18, 24-22).
“It’s incredible, I just can’t believe it”, said 17-year old Adamcikova. ”We dreamed about this and now we are living it”, added Valkova.
The Czech girls had a tough time closing the second set in their last match against Austria. They had to ward off two Austrian set points, and finally at their second match point Adamcikova served an ace to claim victory.
“We made a lot of mistakes”, said Adamcikova about the second set. Valkova: “It was our mistakes only, but in the end we were lucky and that’s good. Now we will try to do our best in the semifinal and celebrate and enjoy every point.”